Florida ROC : Florida Mobile Home & RV Lawyer & Attorney : Scott Gordon : Lutz Bobo Telfair Eastman Gabel & Lee Law Firm : FL Condo & Homeowners Associations

I'm posting the links to three recent articles for my blog readers:

• The first story involves the efforts of a condominium association in Jupiter, Florida to use a dog's individual DNA to help identify canine offenders (and their owners) of the community's "pooper scooper" rules.
•  The aggressive approach taken by a  homeowners' association in Pembroke Pines to collect delinquent maintenance and other fees--brought about in no small part by the foreclosure crisis--is the focus of the second article.
• Finally, a very sobering report from the Palm Beach Post on the battle brewing between Florida's emergency managers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as to whether every emergency shelter in the state is required to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.   According to this article, the cost to bring each of the hundreds of emergency shelters in Florida into compliance with the ADA may exceed One Billion Dollars--and the last time I checked, our state doesn't have that kind of money in its cookie jar.

I hope you enjoy reading these three stories and look forward to your comments.

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Those of you that have attended our seminars for resident owned communities know that I stress the importance of all board meetings being properly noticed and open to all association members.

I'm asked at least several times every year whether a ROC board can meet in "emergency" session and thus dispense with the requirements to post a notice of the board meeting at least 48 hours before the meeting (or, in certain situations, to provide the notice to the members at least 14 days before the meeting).  

Sometimes, the question involves an item that was not included in the agenda for an otherwise properly noticed board meeting but was considered or attempted to be considered by the board on an "emergency" basis.

The Florida Statutes governing condominium associations, cooperative associations, and mandatory homeowners' associations provide for the board to act in an emergency without first providing notice to the membership.   In fact, several years ago, the legislature added Florida Statute Section 718.1265 to the statutes governing condominium associations to specifically provide for a condominium association's emergency powers in response to "damage caused by an event for which a state of emergency is declared" under Florida law.

Neither cooperative associations nor mandatory homeowners' associations were granted the specific powers set forth in F.S. Section 718.1265 and an emergency situation could exist in a community even if a state of emergency has not been declared.

So exactly what constitutes an "emergency? 

Here's my simple rule of thumb:  Can the situation wait until proper notice is given?  In other words, will the community suffer severe damage that will be cost a substantial amount to repair or be impossible to repair if the board waits 48 hours before it acts?  

Here are a few examples of what I consider an "emergency":
 

• The need for immediate response either before, during, or after a hurricane
• The clubhouse is destroyed or severely damaged by fire or weather related event
• A water main that serves the community breaks and sewage is running down the streets of the community

And, regardless of what board members may think, I don't believe any of the following constitute an "emergency":

• An important issue must be voted on before the next scheduled board meeting and was not placed on the agenda for the board meeting that is scheduled for today
• The association has an opportunity to buy a truck at a great price but has been told it must act today
• A crack has developed in one of the shuffleboard courts and the contractor says he'll give the association a "bargain" price if the board can commit to him immediately

Board members should use a common sense approach when considering whether "emergency" action is permitted.   The members of community associations have the right to know when the board is meeting and what issues the board is considering--and unless a situation truly demands immediate action in order to protect the community, its residents, and its property, the board should simply schedule a "special" board meeting to deal with the situation and post the notice and agenda as required by Florida law.  

Better to wait that short period of time than deal with angry residents or have to explain to our Department of Business and Professional Regulation why the board violated Florida law.

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I've been spending a good deal of time recently attending the annual membership meetings of a number of the ROCs we represent and helping many of our communities prepare for these meetings.

I thought I'd list a few reminders for board members and managers of condominium and cooperative associations preparing for annual meetings:

• The annual meeting is a meeting of the members--it's not a board meeting.   While it's common for the board members at the annual meeting to sit and face the unit owners, the directors should remember that it's the membership that will be voting on the issues on the agenda.
• The agenda should concisely and clearly list what business will be considered by the membership.  Only items on the agenda can be considered by the members.
• Ballots are NOT proxies and cannot be used to establish a quorum.   While only twenty per cent of the unit owners are needed to cast ballots in order to conduct an election of the association's directors, other items that require the approval of the unit owners at the annual meeting must occur at a meeting where there is a quorum of the membership's voting interests present.  That quorum requirement is usually a simple majority of the voting interests.
• As we all know, the quorum requirement can be satisfied through the use of proxies that allow a unit owner who does not attend the meeting to appoint a proxy holder to cast that absent unit owner's vote.   Florida statutes governing condominium associations and cooperative associations allow both limited and general proxies to be used to help establish a quorum.

Occasionally, a cooperative or condominium association will have an annual meeting where the unit owners will not be voting on any item that would have to be included on a limited proxy form.  Communities that are fully funding reserves and conducting annual audits would thus not be voting to waive those requirements and might have no other issues requiring a unit owner vote requiring limited proxies.  However, managers and board members in these communities should still deliver a general proxy form to the unit owners and take great care to stress to the membership the importance of properly completing and returning those general proxies.   Keep in mind that if the unit owners decide that there's no reason ton attend the annual meeting (since "nothing important" is happening) and not enough of those unit owners return completed proxies to the association, the association may not be able to conduct any official business at the annual meeting because a quorum was not obtained.

Hopefully, problems of this nature will remain extremely rare in Florida's resident owned communities.

We'll be posting the dates and locations of this season's last set of seminars as well as several speaking engagements within the next two weeks and hope you'll be able to attend one of those events.

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We just finished a busy two week stretch of very well attended seminars.   Thanks to our friends at Paradise Bay Estates in Bradenton, Imperial Bonita Estates in Bonita Springs, Village at Riverwalk in North Port, and Hammock Estates in Sebring for hosting those events.

One of the topics we discussed involved how to balance the rights of a member of a resident owned community to inspect and copy the association's "official records" with the rights of each resident of the community to have certain information remain confidential and protected.

I wanted to highlight several important points made during my presentation on this topic:

• Almost any document currently located in the association's offices falls within the definition of an "official record" under the Florida Statutes governing condominium, cooperative, and mandatory homeowners' associations.
• However, certain documents that are "official' records are nonetheless protected or :"exempt" and even if a member requests to inspect those documents the association shall not allow that member access to those records. 
• Florida's legislators recently amended the statutes governing condominium and mandatory homeowners' associations and added several new categories of these protected or "exempt" documents.   However, the legislators failed to amend the statute governing cooperative associations and, as a result, a member of a cooperative association may still be entitled to inspect personnel records as well as obtain information about other residents--such as email addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and northern addresses--that are now clearly "off limits" to members of condominium associations or mandatory homeowners associations.
• All managers and board members should remember that a member cannot simply show up in the office one day and demand that he immediately be allowed to inspect one or more of the association's "official records".  There is a specific procedure that is to be followed under Florida's statutes and all members should be required to follow those procedures.

We always suggest that any request to inspect an association's "official records" be immediately forwarded to the association's attorney.  The attorney can help the association properly evaluate and respond to request and assist in ensuring that the association complies with Florida's statutory requirements while not violating its members' privacy rights.

The dates, locations and topics for our January seminars will be announced within the next week.  Stay tuned and try to keep warm!

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Most ROC managers and board members know that Florida statutes governing condominium associations and cooperative associations allow directors to attend a board meeting by phone.  

While the statutes governing mandatory homeowners associations don't provide for an HOA board member to appear by phone at a board meeting, if the HOA is a not-for-profit corporation (and most are), the provisions of Florida Statute Section 617.0820(4) may apply and allow HOA directors to participate by "any means of communication by which all directors participating may simultaneously hear each other during the meeting".

The statutory provisions governing condominium and cooperative associations focus on the ability the directors not attending the meeting in person to hear and be heard by the board members attending in person as well as the unit owners present at the board meeting.  Both statutes (Section 718.112(2)(b)5 for condominium associations and 719.106(1)(b)5 for cooperative associations), in contrast to Section 617.0820(4), specifically refer to a "telephone conference" and the use of a "telephone speaker".

But what about Skype?

Many of my blog readers may know that Skype is a free computer program that allows its users to speak at no expense with other Skype users through their computers via the internet.  

One of the manufactured housing cooperatives we represent was thinking about using Skype as a substitute for phone conference calls for directors who could not appear in person for board meetings.   At the time, I hadn't sampled Skype and felt that the process might be too cumbersome and was concerned about statute's specific reference to the use of a telephone.

That was several months ago--before I retired the old but trusty laptop that my younger daughter had handed down to me and purchased a new laptop with a built-in web camera feature.   I thus had an excuse to try Skype and was very impressed with the audio and visual quality of the connection (no doubt to the amusement and mild annoyance of my daughters and one of my nieces who were the first three recipients of my Skype "test run" and who of course have used Skype for several years).

I visited Skype's website and it appears that Skype users can easily arrange for conference calls that will allow everyone on the call to hear and be heard.   I can certainly picture board meetings where there will be a laptop (rather than a telephone speaker) in the center of the table at the ROC clubhouse where the meeting is being held--all at no cost to the association other than the ongoing monthly charge for internet service and, if a member's laptop is not on that clubhouse table, the one-time charge for the association to purchase a laptop.

While using Skype rather than a telephone speaker may not technically constitute a "telephone conference," I would certainly hope that as long as all board members and unit owners can hear and be heard, a board meeting where some directors attend by Skype would meet the statutory requirements.

I'm can't wait for my next chat with that forward thinking ROC.

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The headline of Sunday's edition of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reads "Condo Groups in Financial Pain".  The story accompanying that headline details the severe economic problems many condominium associations face as a result of the ongoing foreclosure crisis.   The article is well worth reading and contains examples of how several associations are attempting to survive a substantial decrease in their members and maintenance fees.

Our resident owned communities, for the most part, have not been severely impacted by the foreclosure crisis.  One of the reasons for this is that the ROCs we work with truly are resident owned--our ROC members customarily live in their homes for at least part of the year (or have one or more members of their family in the home).   In other words, very few of the homes in any of the ROCs we represent can  be characterized as "investment properties".

Nonetheless, I'd like to offer a few suggestions that may help ROC managers and board members better deal with problems arising from residents that fail to make timely payments of rents, maintenance fees or assessments:

1. Given the current economic climate, it's important to strongly encourage all residents to make payments when they are due.   I suggest a policy that should be developed and consistently and uniformly followed to send written notices to all delinquent members no later than 5 to 10 days after payment is due.    Many of the rights given to ROCs by the Florida Statutes to file legal actions or record liens for unpaid assessments and fees are triggered by providing written notice to the homeowner and the sooner this notice can be given the sooner the association can exercise its statutory rights.
2. The association should not be shy about getting its attorney involved early in the process to assist in recording liens and the legal actions that may be needed to protect the association's interests.  While there are certainly expenses involved in these legal remedies, it's quite often necessary to send a message to the members of the community that the ROC board and manager will do whatever it takes within the limits of the law to collect delinquent fees and rents owed to the community.,
3. When the association is named as a defendant in a foreclosure action filed against one of its members by an institutional lender, I always advise the association to answer that foreclosure complaint.  The association's filing of that answer ensures that the association will receive copies of all of the important pleadings that will be filed in that law suit, including the certificate of title that is issued to the person or company that purchases the home at the foreclosure sale.   It's very important that the association determine the new owner of the home as quickly as possible as Florida statutes quite often require that new owner to pay at least a portion of the unpaid maintenance fees or assessments to the association.   The association may have no way to quickly determine the name of the new owner if it has not filed its response to that foreclosure action.

Let's hope that 2010 brings us all heath, prosperity and happiness and that the "foreclosure crisis" is just a dim memory by this time next year.

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